Stink Canyon

Well, Skunk Canyon actually but someone decided that if he couldn't find any skunks, he'd find something to roll in to stink himself up.  There's a reason his #1 nickname is Stinkpants.

He was not wearing that same grin on his face after his shampoo and blow dry when we got home.  No tip for me as his stylist, just stink eye, pouting and the silent treatment.

Other than that it was a beautiful hike up Enchanted Mesa/Skunk Canyon.

There were lots of pinecones to chase.

And pretty views for the humans.

Still some snow on the higher peaks.

Classic Flatirons view.

This short hike usually takes 1 hour 10 minutes (less than an hour if I run it) or so but Strummer managed to stretch it out to 1 hour 35 minutes with his sniffing and rolling and peeing on every last yucca plant in sight.

I'd had a much harder workout on Saturday though and was looking to take it easy.  Two hour mountain bike ride on the Dirty Bismark trail.  Took some extra trails to make it longer than normal.  A beautiful day on that trail too.

Some snow on the Continental Divide.  Probably won't last too much longer.

Classic view of the front range/flatirons.

I did the loop in a clockwise direction for the first time which meant I had a not so very fun long steep climb up a wide gravely trail but it was good practice for the Buffalo Creek Xterra which has a much longer, much steeper much less pleasant climb up a steep jeep road at the end of an already very long bike course.  On the other hand it meant I got to ride down those fun trails shown in the photo above.  Whee.

After 2 hours/16.6 miles of that I threw on my running shoes and did a short 2.6 mile loop on the Marshall Mesa trail.  I managed to twist my ankle and fall about 30 seconds into the run because there's a bunch of rocky, uneven slickrock right at the trail head.  There is a nice smooth, dirt handicap ramp but I was too much of a genius to go down that.  It took a couple of minutes until I could bear weight on it but I shook it off and finished my run no problem.  It wasn't physically hard but I was mentally tired but the run went quickly (38:30 mins.) and my ankle was fine.  Until I got up at some wee hour in the morning and couldn't bear weight on it again.  Then got up a few hours later and it was fine.  Hike today was no problem.  We'll see how boot camp and agility go tomorrow.  In the meantime I think I need to revisit some of my ankle strengthening/balancing exercises from when I sprained my ankle.  I've twisted both ankles while simply walking several times in the last couple few weeks.

Lory is supposed to open in a week.  I want to go up and pre-ride the Xterra course (race is first weekend in June) and try out the trails using my hardtail (ie no rear suspension) mountain bike since it will be lighter and the trails aren't that technical.  But I'm not looking forward to seeing the burn area.  The media was allowed in 3 weeks ago and there are some photos and video here.  I've seen a more recent photo and it looked like things were starting to green up so hopefully it won't be too horribly depressing.  Fires are good for the grasslands in general but not when they get too crazy.  Hopefully with all the moisture we've been getting the park will spring back by June and be even more awesome.

Maybe I Should Get a Cat

A cat, well actually an 8 month old kitten, that does weave poles, blind crosses, backsides of jumps, a teeter and has a perfect running dogwalk.  Amazing.  I wonder if I could send Strummer to this girl to help with his running dogwalk.



Once the 9" of snow in my yard melts I'm going to set up his plank/table and go back to basics. Practice at the field goes back and forth between perfect and disaster so I'm going to try some backyard dogwalk boot camp in hopes of getting better consistency.  To be fair, I've been practicing some challenging turns off the end of the dogwalk so I suppose it's understandable that things will deteriorate but still, I couldn't even get good hits with the reliable stride regulator.

 At a trial somebody asked me if I would train a running dogwalk again and I said hells yeah I would. For one thing it's so much more fun than stopped contacts. For another, I've already made the mistakes and gone through the learning curve, of course I want to try it again using all I've learned. Though it will hopefully be a long long time before I get another dog. I'm through with the 3 dog experiment, much prefer having only 2 so I'd have to have 2 dogs leave me before getting another and I don't even want to think about that so yeah, no new dogs or dogwalk training for a long long while.

Lola enjoying our latest spring snow.

Melting quickly, this is the day after 9" of snow fell.  Looked so white and pretty and sparkly this morning but by the time I got us out for our afternoon walk it was already turning to brown.

Not so happy about the grainy cell phone pictures but I couldn't be bothered digging out my camera before our walk.

Trails should be dry by the weekend, time to hit the hills and start training for reals.

You Spin Me Right Round Baby Right Round

Like a record.

I was intrigued by a post by Agility Nerd about a handling move called Top Spin so I thought I give it a spin, so to speak, out at the practice field this morning.  You can check out the course map and description of the move as well as some video here.  Basically you use it when you want a lot of collection on a turn but not a full wrap.  You turn your shoulders towards the dog like you would in an RFP, if you do RFP's, but instead of quickly turning back, you keep going in a full circle.  Here's a rough sketch of the set-up I used so you don't have to go back and forth between here and Agility Nerd.

Dog goes over jump 2 on your right and as the dog commits to 3 you turn into him, or to your left, and continue in a full circle, moving in a clockwise direction.

I shot some video including some slow motion of both the Top Spin and a front cross between 3 and 4 with rear cross at the weaves.  Steve's got video as well and shows an RFP and a shoulder pull with deceleration.  I didn't try these with Strum because I can tell you right now that no way will he get that weave entry with just a shoulder pull/decel cue.  This is largely due to his spotty weave entry skills and partly due to the speed coming out of the tunnel.  And I really don't like RFP's, especially in this scenario, way too herky jerky, didn't want to try to go there with Strummer.  My first choice before trying the Top Spin would be a front cross between 3 and 4.  I didn't draw the full course but you turn to the left after the weaves so you want your dog on your right when he exits the weaves so with the front you either need a rear cross at the weave entry or a front or blind cross at the weave exit, none of which is a problem for us.  In particular I've been practicing tough rear crosses at the entry as a method of proofing and it's helping Strum a lot with his entries and staying in.

Anyway, here's my video, shot from a different angle from Steve's video, mostly to avoid shooting into the bright glare of the morning sun.  I've got examples of both the Top Spin and Front Cross in slow motion so you can see the details and the weave entry.

TOP SPIN ii from colliebrains on Vimeo.

It took us many tries to get the weave entry with the Top Spin but this could be just as much a product of Strummer's difficulty with weave entries as it is from the handling move itself.  The front cross allows me to shape the entry but even so he still missed it on one rep with the front cross.  In the case of the Top Spin it could also be that I was positioned such that I was blocking his entry on the misses, hard to tell from the angle of the video.

In general I prefer the front cross because it's more comfortable and even more so because I don't have to lose that contact/connection by taking my eyes off my dog.  I don't mind this during blind crosses and Ketschkers because the amount of disconnection is so small but the time it takes to spin around a full 360 degrees is significant, at least to me, and the period of disconnection felt like an eternity.  And I felt like I wasted precious time and mental energy trying to find him and re-connect again and Strum seemed a bit hesitant to the point of checking in on the earlier reps.  It's hard to say if this would get better with practice or if it's a problem intrinsic to the move.  Also I sometimes have problems with becoming disoriented when rotating out of a front cross and losing where I am on course during a competition and for me I could see this being an issue with this move, especially in the heat of competition.  Like Steve I also had issues with turning too soon and pulling him off the jump.  Verbal jump cues do little to send him on over a jump if my body language is saying something else so I have to be a little 'late' if I'm using collection cues that involve facing him.  Much less precision in timing involved with a front cross in this scenario.  But the Top Spin looks cooler on the video so I guess if you're going for style points . . .

Probably not a move I'd use very often if ever but I love experimenting with new handling moves and I'll throw it in here and there during practice just for fun if there's occasion for it.  Thanks to Steve at Agility Nerd for showing us a fun new move.

Wordless Wednesday

Spring in Colorado

Last weekend (1 week ago):

This past weekend:

This is why you don't see many photos of Cody lately.

He bumbles right up to me, gets too close to the camera and even if I do manage a shot, he does something awkward like close his eyes.

He's doing o.k. these days, kinda wobbly in his rear legs, falls over sometimes, does a lot of that old dog pacing, wanders into corners and stays there for a bit, typical old dog stuff but he has his moments of perkiness, chasing me around the yard as long as I don't go too fast.  Somehow he can run and do big 4 legged jumps when dinner is getting dished out.  Funny how that works.  Going to be 15 in July.

Had a nice long 3 1/4 hour bike ride on the plains on Saturday and got a nice shot of the twin peaks, Longs and Meeker.

Then went on a 4 1/4 hour hike up at Hall Ranch on Sunday and got more shots of the twin peaks from a different vantage.

And a more panoramic view.

Classic Hall Ranch shot.

Both days were perfect, sunny, blue skies, low 60's with a nice breeze.  Quite the contrast to the snowstorm and 12 degrees of last weekend.

The coffee shop we normally go to in Lyons was shut for Easter which was surprising because Easter's not really that big of a deal in the Boulder area and most places were open.  But we easily found another place that was open that seemed appropos.

The coffee was better and the people working there didn't have the same snooty attitude as the other place so I think we've found a new place for pre-ride/hike fueling up.  And I guess Lyons is the sort of place where you can leave a several thousand dollar titanium Litespeed road bike unlocked on the main street. 

Beautiful day again today and supposed to rain/snow tomorrow.  April always keeps us on our toes.

Eight weeks until my first race in June up in Lory provided they don't cancel it due to the fire.  So far it sounds like it's a go but 10 bridges were destroyed and will have to be re-built.  I thought about offering my structural engineering skills to help design the bridges but then I realized that they probably still have the plans from the original bridges.  I was looking at a map of the burn area and it looks like almost if not all of the entire bike course is burned.  Hard to say if the run course was torched but I suspect it was.  Miraculously though the transition area is not burned.  The fire came right up to the boundaries of it and let it be.  I think the finish area is o.k. as well.  Will probably be a very depressing race but you never know, maybe the grasses will start to grow back in May.  The park almost certainly needed a fire going through it, just not such a big and extensive one.

Anyway, this month's training will include the start of hill training for both bike and run.  I'm going to sign up for one more month of boot camp classes then in May I'll start going maybe only once or twice a week.  I hate to stop though, I feel so much better and stronger doing weights and plyometrics a few times a week but I suppose I can do them on my own.  I'm going to see how I manage during April as I increase my biking and running. 

No agility trials until the end of the month but my training partner is up for training again so Strummy gets to play tomorrow.  I've been going to the practice field on my own to work on dogwalks and such but it's fun to have someone to train with.

Bring on the spring.

Happy Easter from my East County Buddy

All decked out in his Easter best.

Technically I'm supposed to be celebrating Passover but let's see, matzoh and gefilte fish vs. chocolate bunnies and eggs.  Ummm . . .yeah.  I don't think anyone in my family does a Passover seder anymore so I guess I'm safe from the horrors of gefilte fish. 

But have a good Passover anyway to any readers who are celebrating.  Have a matzoh ball for me.  Mmmm matzoh balls, maybe I can figure out how to make those with a vegetarian version of chicken soup.  Yeah, I'll get right on that, right after I have another chocolate egg.

Fire and Ice

Last weekend I missed a USDAA trial that I was really really looking forward to.  But with predictions of 10-15" of snow and 50 mph winds, blizzard conditions down in Castle Rock/Douglas County where the trial was being held I decided to stay home.  The storm wasn't so bad in Boulder and the roads in general were fine for driving on Saturday morning but I'd have to spend the night down in Castle Rock, drive 4 miles to get to the hotel as well as drive around to get food and I didn't feel like driving around in a blizzard.  The next morning was sunny but cold and the roads had iced over so I didn't want to drive 60 miles on a skating rink.  We ended up having a good weekend, went out in the snow plenty, but I was still disappointed at missing the trial.

Fast forward to this Friday and temps. were predicted to hit the 70's so Jonny and I decided to take the afternoon off and head up to Lory State Park for an early season bike ride.  The day started off nicely enough, a typical sunny blue sky day in the Soderburg Open Space parking lot.  I figured I'd have lots of nice, uneventful blue sky/red rock photos to post.

We climbed the small hill up from the parking lot to the trail where the view opened up to this.

And I knew right away it could be nothing else but a wildfire.  Sure enough the smoke got thicker and darker the closer we got to Lory.

And the view at the entrance to the park?  Crap.

Still it was hard to say where the fire was.  The winds were very strong, 35 mph or so, and smoke carries a long way in winds like that.  The fire could have been well north of the park for all we knew.  We kept going for about a mile or so into the park, turned a corner and saw this.

It's hard to tell from the photo but the line of flames extends down to the right for as long as I could see.  At that point the ranger was turning people around but I didn't need a ranger to tell me to turn tail.  My general rule of thumb is that if I can see flames I'm too close.  I snapped 2 photos and skedadled back to the car.  Thankfully I had the wind at my back and mostly downhill so even though the fire was moving quickly in the strong winds I was never in any serious danger.

There were no firefighters and the rangers still hadn't closed the trails so we had no way of knowing how close we were.  The rangers did close the trails as we were leaving and we had to hoist our bike over several crime scene tape closures to get back to the car.  We probably could have ridden on the Blue Sky trail further to the south but my legs were a bit shaky at that point and the ranger told us we could but strongly advised against it.  So once again denied by the weather.

The fire is at 800 acres and no containment as of about 5:00 this evening.  The winds are too strong to bring in air support.  Scary to think what July is going to be like.

Internationalization-Why Should the Europeans Have All the Fun?

“It's not who you are that holds you back, it's who you think you're not” 
(Anonymous)

International style courses - love them or hate them they're here.  Personally I love them but I didn't always.  When I first saw courses from overseas I thought, ugh, so glad I don't have to deal with that.  Herky, jerky, trappy, de-motivating, why would anybody want to do that to themselves or their dog?

But then I started training those challenges in little bits and pieces.  And I worked on training and timing collection cues.  Plus a few more years of trialing, facing courses with the same old same old challenges and now I love the idea of something new.  I love practicing the tricky stuff and it's a great feeling of accomplishment when I do make it through a crazy sequence.  The courses aren't jerky or de-motivating at all if you have the skills to handle them.  The key is training and getting over the myths and self-limiting beliefs about yourself and your dog.

Think you need to be fit, fast and young to kick butt on international style courses?  Try telling that to this woman.




Think you need a Border Collie or herding breed?  Plenty of non-BCs/non-herders in this video and they look plenty happy, fast and motivated.  I train with someone who has an awesome poodle and you should see this dog's super tight turns, speed and enthusiasm.




Big dogs and inflexible dogs can't do tight turns?  Back sides, threadles, etc. are demotivating?  Try telling that to Silvia Trkman.



That last video is a trailer for a Foundations training program for crying out loud.  Baby dogs of a variety of breeds and sizes easily, happily doing threadles and back sides and tight wraps, no problem.  Again, it's all about training and attitude and breaking through those self-limiting beliefs.

Of course dogs need to be well conditioned and have a certain amount of athleticism and I don't think that's an unreasonable requirement.  This is a sport and it's called agility, seems like being agile should be a prerequisite no matter what style of course the dog is doing.  We have tight turns and wraps on our courses already, if a dog knows how to collect and the handler cues them properly for the turn it shouldn't be a problem and because of the collection they land lighter than if they were running flat out taking the jump in extension.  In fact I see a lot of dogs on wide open courses (ie DOCNA) getting no timely turning cues, taking the jump in extension and grinding into the turn on the flat after the jump as the handler yells at them too late.

I'm not sure what the future holds for these types of courses here in the U.S.  Locally we've exactly one UKI trial that was not very well attended which is a shame because it was so much fun.  USDAA has opened up their Masters Challenge courses to anybody at any level and I hear AKC is experimenting with an international style class.  I've seen a few backsides of jumps in DOCNA courses though not so much lately so I'm not sure where DOCNA is going.  If these classes were required for the ADCH, MACH, etc it would provide the motivation for people to ramp up their training but I don't see that happening any time soon.  Those titles are a great marketing tool, a way to get people hooked on spending their time and money on agility weekend after weekend and none of the agility organizations are going to risk driving away those $$$ never mind dealing with the uproar.  As well it's going to take a while for instructors in the U.S. to ramp up their training programs though with online training these days the world is your classroom so anybody keen to learn has plenty of options.  But until instructors start teaching these skills on a wider scale as part of a foundation program there's going to be a lot of fear and resistance to the new courses.

My plea here is to keep an open mind and don't let other people tell you who you're not, especially if you're new to agility.  These courses are a kick in the pants and a fun way to push yourself if you're willing to learn the skills and embrace the notion that you and your dog can do it and that it's fun.

This post is a part of Dog Agility Blog Event Day.  Click on this link to read more posts about Internationalization.